


Somebody like me

by towardsmorning



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Character of Color, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>(Prompt: Angel/Raven, wings.)</i>
</p><p>"Raven can see Angel's shoulders tensing when her hands gently press against the flat of them- she wants to apologise and draw them away, but the words tie themselves into knots on her tongue and while her hands grow still they remain where they are. Instead, the words that come out are: "Did you ever show anyone?""</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somebody like me

**Author's Note:**

> Commissioned fic for [heresieirisee](http://heresieirisee.tumblr.com/), who is infinitely generous and unbelievably patient. Asked for Angel/Raven with a focus on wings; that somehow turned into this. I very much love this pairing, so goodness knows I enjoyed writing this!

Raven and Angel share a room, something which pleases Raven more than she lets on. In the beginning it had seemed absolutely alien to her- first she had lived alone, and then once living with Charles they had always had separate rooms. In the end the faculty is too weird for that, Raven thinks. Everything is too ordered and strange and not _home_ , and Raven is pretty sure she would have hated lying awake on her own trying to ignore that fact. They get put together by default because they're the only two girls, and they smirk about the fact that this means there's only two of them to a room where the boys all had to share together.

After the failed party (and that's being generous, but hell, Raven can be generous, it's not like she has anything even remotely close to parties in her life) both Angel and Raven therefore slink back to that room together. Raven feels a little bad about not clearing up, but something tells her that Charles wouldn't appreciate his slightly drunk sister sticking around after that mess. He'd probably hiss something about making a scene, she thinks sourly, and slams the door just a little too hard behind them by accident, immediately wincing at the sound echoing down the hall.

"Slam it a little harder, I think they didn't hear it down the street," Angel says in response, sounding way more sober than she has any right to in Raven's opinion. She certainly sounds considerably more sober than Raven _feels_ , although that makes sense given that Angel has probably got plenty of experience with alcohol whereas Raven had consumed maybe three drinks in her entire life prior to tonight. She's pretty sure that sort of thing makes a difference.

"Sorry," Raven manages, and then scowls, collapsing onto her unmade bed heavily. Scowls because Raven isn't sure she really _is_ sorry, however petulant the sensible part of her mind is telling her that attitude is. She knows that they screwed up and that things got out of hand but she also knows in a way nobody else here does that even if they'd managed to avoid shattering the window and knocking the statue over and all that crap, Charles wouldn't have treated them much differently. It's not that they were immature or destructive. It's just that they weren't _keeping their heads down_ , Raven thinks. But she's not a mind reader and she can't prove it, so Raven just curls her knees under her and scowls into the distance, thinkings uncharitable thoughts about her brother that will probably inspire guilt at some point in the near future.

Alcohol makes her irritable apparently. She's certainly learning plenty of new things tonight.

"You all right?" Angel asks after a moment. Raven feels her settle on the bed beside her. It's not really a worried tone of voice, as such, because Raven doesn't think Angel is the kind of person who ever sounds really _worried_. But it's not sarcastic or patronizing either.

"Yeah," Raven says after a second, because anything else would sound whiny and she hates to think of Angel thinking of her like that. They're friends, kind of. Raven hasn't ever had friends who she doesn't have to hide in front of before, discounting Charles. And she does discount him because that's different- he's not her friend, he's... Charles. Angel is different too, and it's a kind of different Raven desperately wants to hold on to. "I'm fine." A smile pulls itself across her lips with reluctance and she changes the subject quickly. "Hey, you impressed everyone today, you know."

Angel looks confused for a second before she laughs. "Oh. The wings, you mean?" The wings in question spread out behind her as she speaks, and Raven stares at them, unfolding like paper- if she didn't know otherwise she would never have thought that they could be real. And she certainly wouldn't have believed that the things could support a human being for that matter. Raven doesn't know much of anything about science even when she's sober but she thinks vaguely that there's something wrong there, something about aerodynamics and mass and so on, and she wonders if Charles could somehow explain it to her or if it's just a weird mutant thing, which seems as plausible an explanation as any.

"They're beautiful," she manages eventually, half entranced by the fluttering movements they make seemingly of their own accord. "Can I touch them?" she adds without thinking, because her mind still feels heavy and soft from alcohol in a way that is thoroughly unfamiliar and which apparently strips her of any common sense at all. Before she finds time to wince and apologise because _god Raven, what are you saying,_ Angel has turned around, nodding and apparently both unsurprised and not offended.

"Go ahead."

Raven runs a finger along the edge of one and it twitches. They feel less delicate than they look, but not by much. Raven can see Angel's shoulders tensing when her hands gently press against the flat of them- she wants to apologise and draw them away, but the words tie themselves into knots on her tongue and while her hands grow still they remain where they are. Instead, the words that come out are: "Did you ever show anyone?"

"At work, you mean," Angel says, her voice even. It doesn't sound precisely like a question.

"Yeah."

"Once," she says, sounding a little bitter. "Didn't make that mistake again." There are a lot of things Raven wants to ask, like who it was and why and when, because Raven has never told anyone who wasn't a mutant and has always desperately want to know what might happen: the desperation of someone who doesn't know what it is she's afraid of. But that audible bitterness stops her and she draws her hand away instead. The muscles in Angel's shoulder seem to relax, and a little warning bell at the back of Raven's head tells her that she should probably stop staring, while another part of her mind suggests that this is a pretty huge gesture of trust on Angel's part. Her sluggish mind fumbles around with what to do with that fact.

She's been silent too long. The noise as she clears her throat suddenly seems too loud in the little dim room, and her voice as she tries to fill that sudden silence likewise.

"Well, at least they're pretty," she babbles, trying to keep any bitterness out of her own voice. "I mean, I guess that doesn't really make it any easier in the long run, but..." she trails off and the 'but' hangs in the air between them. Raven doesn't know how she'd finish the sentence given the chance, or if it's just a meaningless platitude without an appropriate ending at all. Angel has twisted around and is looking at Raven with an indecipherable look on her face- it makes Raven feel suddenly awkward and a little defiant all at once.

"So's yours, though. And you can look however you want anyway."

She feels some kind of shiver go through her at that. Raven has never been told that her 'natural' form is beautiful before, and she certainly hasn't ever felt that way about it herself. She supposes she can see why someone might think so, but she still cannot easily bring her mind around to the concept. The fact that she can be any face she likes is true enough, though, and Raven remembers being young and trying on the prettiest faces she could think of in the mirror when bored and left to her own devices. She had become skilled at crafting new ones instead of stealing other people's through long practice. Not entirely coincidentally, this had been around the time she had warned Charles to stay out of her head without permission. Raven had told him that she wanted privacy at the time. She had _known_ that he didn't need to worry about any more ways she was set apart from the world and that he certainly didn't need another thing to remind her was a secret that needed to be kept.

A second, more literal shiver runs the length of her body as she thinks this through. Her body changes to blue more slowly than normal, and Raven wishes it were easy to manifest clothes over the scales, even though she tells herself that the scales basically count as clothes themselves. It takes an effort to not cross her arms across her chest or hunch over herself, but when she smiles, she means it.

"Thank you."

"So can I return the favour?" Angel gestures vaguely and Raven frowns for a moment before she realises that _oh, right._

"Uh... sure," she manages, and swallows when Angel brushes a hand against Raven's arm. She can't feel it quite as well as usual, but there are definitely goosebumps on some sort of metaphorical level, she's sure.

Raven abruptly wishes she were a lot more sober.

Angel's eyes are trained on Raven's, assessing. Her hand doesn't move away, a solid weight that is impossible to ignore. The room is dark and Raven feels light-headed. Angel's face is very, very close to hers. A little light catches the other woman's wings and the iridescent gleam- deep and unusual and somehow unearthly- is what helps Raven make her mind up. _You're like me,_ she thinks as the distance between them closes, _and you're beautiful._ If Angel's wings can be beautiful to her then Raven thinks she can believe that blue skin, scales, red hair can be beautiful to Angel. And as long as she can believe that, she can believe anything.

When they kiss, it feels like the start of something new and daring. Her heart pounds in her ears and she almost starts to think that whatever this is, there might be a place for it somewhere. And when Angel's hand comes up to feel the texture of her skin, Raven even thinks that one day she might believe it if Angel says it feels beautiful.


End file.
